How do I get in to working with the dead?

[Hoohaahoo]

It’s something that has interested me for a while but I’ve lacked confidence after being a sahm for so long. I’m in a good place now and looking to find a career in something I find interesting.

For anyone that works in this industry, how did you get in to it? Would it be worth doing an open university course in access to science?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Just hang around for a few weeks...

Friend of mine is an undertaker ... Says it's a living ...

My first boyfriend was an undertaker at age 18.
His father was the local vicar.
From what I remember, it was just at the time when family run undertakers were being bought out by the big firms, and even franchised.

As well as phenomenal empathy, funeral directors have a wild sense of humour, even about their work. I never met one that didn’t have a huge crazy sense of humour in fact. Perhaps it’s part of the job’s stress release.

Try an embalming course at college. No academic qualifications required (didn’t back then anyway), that will sort your wheat from your chaff if you think you have a strong stomach

And then remember that you’ll be dealing with children, car accidents, post ops, post-autopsies, body parts as well as bodies, injuries beyond your wildest LiveLeak trawling, and a lot of time in religious venues. All of that plus you need as said before phenomenal empathy.

ginandbearit

I was brought up quite 'craggy islandy', and the local undertaker's apprentice would cheer things up a bit by borrowing signs from other local businesses for the front window as a bit of dark humour.

One week we had 'Morning coffee'. Then 'Takeaways'. He ended up not working with the dead, funnily enough.

Exactly, Sea. A close friend of mine is married to an undertaker. He was not born into a family of undertakers but was also the child of a pastor. What drew him was his desire to help those whose loved one had died, not so much 'interest' in dead bodies or strong stomach or curiosity about the process of death but a very deep-rooted desire to be of assistance to all in every aspect of death. He had to do a great deal of training and he worked for directors for many years before taking over a business after the owner died and none of his family wanted to continue on in the profession. He has seen a lot of surely grim and tragic things but he's such an amazingly professional and empathetic and mature and wise person the business is doing well. He works closely with the police and liason officers and bereavement charities to assist the families.

Where abouts do you work? My first job after uni was with Tissue Services, a branch of the NHS although you don’t need a degree if you go in as a technician. We would travel to mortuaries across the country carrying out cadaveric tissue retrieval and then the process of the tissues for the treatment of burns victims, orthopaedic patients etc. We retrieved skin, bone, tendons and knees. Incredibly interesting. I saw lots of post mortems whilst waiting to do the retrieval.

There’s now a national tissue bank in Liverpool and one in London.

I should also add that his brother had died suddenly in RTC so he brought that level of empathy to his career as well and still does.

If you’re looking at pathology I’d recommend reading this

www.penguin.co.uk/books/288926/unnatural-causes/9781405923538

What's the problem with describing it as working with the dead, it's accurate and if you're bereaved semantics aren't going to bring back the person you are grieving for

It's not about bringing back ones loved ones, miss, it's about the tone of it and as expressed by later posts.

Have you read Unnatural Causes by Sr Richard Shephard? It’s a brilliant insight into the life of a forensic pathologist and goes in to great detial about the process of death and post Morton’s.

*mortem

Pathologists are Doctors. They are also Surgeons. The training is extremely long.

There are plenty of Scientist jobs in Pathology, running the labs etc.

Apologies for the bluntness, but you sound like you need a reality check.

A friend loved her job at a funeral director's. Did it for years. Described it as 'the best job in the world'.

And then she had what she calls 'a Maggot Incident'.

She's been unable to sleep without strong medication for five years, has gone from a healthy weight to cadaverous, as she cannot eat anything without vomiting and in all likelihood, isn't ever going to work again, despite access to a seemingly bottomless pit of funding from her employer for her to have support, counselling, treatment and full wages for two years. Her employers have done everything they can to help, but what she experienced on one evening has been too much for her to bear.

Another friend hasn't worked for ten years since being a SOCO. He has nightmares, as he describes it, without needing to close his eyes.

The man who ran the local hospital mortuary perfectly happily for ten years committed suicide in the sluice room - the belief is that there wasn't a particular event that triggered this, but it was an accumulation of his day to day work that affected him. The first job for the replacement was his predecessor. (I think that processes may have changed now, though).

I did a secondment in a mortuary. The humour would be horrific to anybody else (nothing insulting to the deceased but you can't get darker than finding something funny in the mortuary) - but they all have their quiet tales and their 'If this happens, I'm done' points. There were the terrorist incidents, the disasters, the multiple accidents. All of these affect people differently; the sheer numbers, the work, the conditions, being tired but unable/feeling unable to stop until the work is done. It's very, very demanding emotionally and physically.

It's not like on the telly at all. I did the secondment because they desperately needed somebody and I was the only person who didn't shrink away with horror at the thought. I don't regret it in the slightest. But some things will stay with you for a very, very long time - it might be the sight, it might be the sound, it could very well be a smell - it might be a personal connection.

Be very aware that having a cast iron stomach and wanting to help people or being fascinated by a taboo subject is no defence against your own mind as a result of what you witness. And other than colleagues or a specialist professional when it becomes too much, you will have nobody to talk to about it - no 'how was work today?' as you come in and hang your coat up dash upstairs to shower for an hour. What you experience will be yours alone - there will be no unwinding with a mate after work and joking about your job if they don't do similar.

Curiosity is not a useful characteristic. Because you won't be needing it.

You'll see stuff you have never imagined anyway.

Still interested? Get some specific ideas as to direction and start approaching potential employers.

Ive no idea what the overly aggressive comment is for. People are trying to help out.

It's not about bringing back ones loved ones, miss, it's about the tone of it and as expressed by later posts.

All of which I didn't notice as it's nothing compared to the raw pain of not having my dad.

Well, I noticed it, but it's my child who died, guess that wasn't raw enough.

Although this is rather a departure from the original brief, perhaps investigating the post of a registrar for deaths might be a start, and might also be useful for developing appropriate empathy towards bereaved families/relatives who would have to come to register, which I am sure would be needed by all involved. This type of post is advertised reasonably often where I am, flexible in terms of hours, and I think it's not too difficult to get training if selected. Not sure if it would cover both death and birth registration.

You could come and work with me. I think some of the people I work with are dead 😂

Your focus needs to be on the living, so that rules out anyone whose first thought is “what is a dead body really like?”.
Unless approaching it from a medical perspective, but I doubt that’s an achievable angle for you, OP.